Borrowed Time
by gomenasai-for-everything
Summary: Sequel to Too Little Time. John has just found out that Harry is a ghost. He doesn't know whether to be thrilled or devastated. He still does everything he can to help, though, and finally gets to ease his regret and tell Harry just how he always felt. Harry doesn't know how to react, and it just adds onto the troubles he already has. Ghost story spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

It was Tuesday, and I was going to Graceland Cemetery. I've been frequenting the place quite often, recently, always early in the day, before many people are awake and capable of noting the visits. Getting predictable is dangerous, in my line of work, deadly, really. I fingered the cloth in my pocket, and took a deep breath. I was tired. The past six months had aged me exponentially, partly because of the Fomor, partly because of the extra time I'd been spending attempting to keep His friends safe, and partly because I was still grieving. I sighed. Hell, when was I not grieving for Him anymore? I wasn't even supposed to be back home yet; Murphy and the rest thought I was still in Italy going on a wild damned goose chase for the Holy Grail. I'd had to come back because I'd been unable to stay away from this place, this grave, this name, no matter my duties or my wishes. I wished I'd been able to find it, because that would've meant there was still hope, but it was lost. I had failed. Maybe more so than I could even imagine yet. The car pulled up to a familiar gate, familiar snow that shouldn't have been here this late in the year. I recalled Mab, and felt dull rage build in my chest. If not for her… if not for her… I wasn't quite sure. I just knew that without her things would be different; perhaps He would still be alive. Perhaps I wouldn't be feeling like this. I climbed out, and my driver left. He'd be back in an hour, I supposed, but no one else desired to see my anger upon being interrupted whilst I was in this place, after the last time that I'd… I supposed blown up would be the proper term.

I walked to the grave slowly, made each footstep purposeful. The grave gaped open as always, as if waiting to swallow Him up into the earth and never let Him go. I wondered how long ago it had been, that I'd lost the ability to even think His name, much less say it out loud. My eyes burned, and I finally reached the open grave. I crouched beside it, the snow cold against my knees and calves, quickly soaking through my slacks to freeze my skin. I clenched my hands in the fabric at my thighs, and pulled the cloth from my pocket. Ritualistically, I began to wipe the front of the stone clear of the daily grime that always seemed to build on it, paying special attention to the tiny golden pentacle. It always reminded me of Him, really; it was His symbol, always, no matter how many other people I saw wearing it. It represented Him in ways it couldn't ever do for anyone else. I still wondered where His own pentacle amulet had ended up upon His passing; I assumed he'd been wearing it when He died. It was probably still on His body, wherever His body was. I had the sudden, almost sickening image of a browned skeleton, too long, with the dull gleam of tarnished silver around its neck. I coughed to hide a choke that couldn't have been a sob. I finished my work and tucked the cloth away.

"Why? I realize I always ask this, but you've yet to answer me, you know. I simply… why did you leave us? Why now? We need you. Ineed you. Things are not… god. Things are not well here. Hell, do you see what you've reduced me to? I can hardly speak clearly, now. I'm tired. So, so tired. I knew from the moment I met you that you'd change things for me, you know. Not to this degree, of course, but I knew you'd be important. Damn. You truly must be quite tired of listening to this prattle, wherever you are. It isn't as though I ever tell you anything different, and these concerns are probably beyond you now, aren't they? You've eternal paradise to enjoy, now, don't you? I certainly hope so. You, of all people, deserve it." I paused to gather myself, because my voice had begun to shake.

"They were calling you a criminal, in the papers, saying you'd bombed your apartment and your office because you couldn't pay for them. I… I took care of that for you. I didn't kill anyone, certainly; you'd be upset with me for that. Of course, you'd likely be upset with me for paying the media off as I did as well, but it's better, isn't it? I hope that I'm still the man you remember, you know. I hope that you wouldn't hate the man I am now. I hope I haven't become someone you'd not consider working with, someone you'd call evil. I've been looking after your friends for you, and I've done more work on that Paranet of yours. It was a very good idea, by the way, something I'd have liked to have done myself, had I the connections you once did. It's working well, now, however. It's saved a lot of lives already." My hands shook suddenly and violently. I didn't bother trying to hide it; He, of all people, deserved to see some of the weakness in me.

"I wish you were still here. I wish I could still see you. I wish… I wish you were here to hit me, now, for saying all of this. It's foolish of me, I know. I apologize for that. I've not gotten to the part I'm sure you hate most though, not yet. It's still true, though. It is. I cannot get over it. I cannot get over you. I cannot forget. Damn it, I cannot even say your name anymore without wanting to cry like a child! You've made me weak. I say again, I expected things to change when I met you. I expected a lot. I did not expect this. I did not expect that you'd die and leave me. I did not expect that you'd be such a stubborn, oblivious idiot who couldn't see the nose on his face if someone gave him a map to it, but who could crack a case twenty years old if he turned his head and looked at it sideways for five goddamned minutes. I did not expect that I'd fall in love with you. I wish you'd warned me that people in your association have a habit of doing that, of either loving you or wanting to kill you or both. Such a bother. Bad for business, as well, but I suppose that's your motto, isn't it? Everything you did was bad for business, but you'd not be yourself if you were any different. My, wasn't that a redundant statement? Well. I've little else to say, but I'll sit here a while, of course. I don't even know if you're really here, not really, but this is all I have. It's something, and I'll take it. You'd best not ruin it for me." I closed my eyes and leaned forward as if I was praying, but I hadn't done that in quite some time.

Instead, I was simply thinking. If I did this in this place, it felt as if I could remember everything about Him, every detail of His face, His voice, His smile. All of it. My breath was wet and shuddering. And then I felt it. Something cold, a breeze that blew in the opposite direction of the wind. I gasped. It… no. It couldn't be. I whispered His name for the first time in six months, and it felt strange and heavy and far, far too important on my tongue.

* * *

Harry's POV

I had been hiding from the sun and lazing, when I felt a presence at the rim of my grave. Huh. That was sort of weird; I knew I'd only been in here for a couple of hours, but still. It hadn't really sounded like there were a boatload of people paying respects to me. I couldn't imagine it was anything good, honestly, so I peeked my head out just slightly (and you would never guess how hot the sun could be when you don't have skin or nerves or anything), and saw someone cleaning my headstone carefully. I did not expect that particular someone to be hanging out at my grave, and certainly wouldn't expect him to be cleaning it; John Marcone just didn't pull that kind of shit. It was, in his own vernacular, bad for business. I figured he was doing it as a favor for someone else, to tell the truth. At least I did until he started talking.

I've never heard him sound so… so… not in control as he did then. I was used to him sounding like a man accustomed to being obeyed without question, to having his words be seen as law. Just then he sounded like a lost child with no idea where he was supposed to be and his hand trapped in a cookie jar. He sounded like he actually missed me. He sounded… like he said, he sounded tired. Older. I didn't like it. I'd never really thought about how much of a constant Marcone was until he just… until he sounded like that, until I saw him vulnerable. Times like these reminded me that he really was a mortal, no matter how much he liked to pretend otherwise. For the millionth time I wished that I could actually make people realize I was there, because for some reason, I wanted to comfort the bastard.

Then he started talking about loving me, and if my heart had been beating, it would've stopped then. It was at these words his voice started to waver and shake, and I saw tears he didn't even seem to notice building at the corners of his eyes. Hey, hadn't Murphy said he was in Rome or something? What was he doing here? I felt my own eyes begin to burn and wondered why as uncontrollable memories of Marcone began to flash behind my eyes. His face when he'd pulled me from the river with the Shroud of Turin, wild eyed and twisted with fear. Had he really looked like that? I remembered him as being far more indifferent, that time, with maybe a little annoyance at me for wasting his time and risking his prize. Another memory, this time of our first meeting. That one, I remembered him looking indifferent, with a bored father's smile falsely painting his lips. This memory showed something strange in his eyes, an almost hunger I'd only seen from a few people in my life, and I recognized it as attraction, as interest. Then I saw him with Amanda, and it wasn't distrust of me on his face, no, it wasn't a threat; he hadn't wanted me to see him weak, not then, he hadn't wanted me to see the source of his guilt. He'd… he'd been afraid that I'd blame him for it too, that I'd hate him if I ever found out the truth. Once more I was reminded that I wasn't really alive, that I was just memory, that everything felt so much stronger like this, that I could cry.

I stretched my hand from the safety of my grave and managed to brush it across his leg before the sun forced me to huddle back inside the earth. My name, when it fell from his lips, sounded like the holiest of words, like a prayer, and I realized suddenly that through all of this, he hadn't said my name before now. I had a sudden thought; what if he was one of the ones that would be hurt if I didn't find my killer? It was obvious that he wasn't at his best, and hadn't been for a while. Deep, dark circles marred the area beneath his eyes, and his face was a little sallow, a little sunken. I was pretty sure that he actually looked his age for the first time in his life, just then. I licked my lips as if it would do anything, and thought hard. Marcone was important to me, I realized, an ally. Maybe more than that.

Had he ever really done anything to me? Oh, yeah, he'd threatened, sure, and I knew he probably had twenty million contingency plans in place just for me, but he'd never done anything. He'd always helped me, even though he'd had plenty of opportunities to take me out. He was… a friend. Yeah. I could call him that, now, because things stop looking so black and white when you're dead. There aren't always just good guys and bad guys. Marcone was one of those types of people that straddled the line and smudged it beyond legibility. I laughed a little. The him loving me thing would maybe take a little getting used to, though. There weren't all that many women around who claimed to love me, and I could hardly deal with them. Having a smitten mob boss, a male one at that, would be sort of weird. I managed to stretch out and touch him one more time before he stumbled almost drunkenly to his feet.

"Harry. My god. You're here. You're here. Christ. Gard… Gard will give me something that will allow me to see you. Remain here, please. Please. I'll… I'll return shortly." And then he left, and I was alone. I stared out after him. My grave didn't seem so peaceful anymore, so calming. I curled back down against the tightly packed earthen wall again, trying for that peace I'd had before John arrived. John? Huh. That sounds weird, when I'm not saying it to piss him off. I tried to think of a time when calling him by his first name actually had legitimately pissed him off, beyond him being upset that I wouldn't let him take the same informality with my own name, and couldn't think of a time. Then why did I keep doing it? I wondered how long my own damned memories had known that I liked the asshole, and how long they'd decided to keep it from the rest of me. Revelations like this are annoying, and surprisingly common when you don't have any bias to pollute what you remember. I don't like it. My eyes fluttered shut as the sun climbed higher in the sky, up towards its highest point.

To be honest, I was getting a little impatient for John (yeah, I'm calling him that now; he's a friend, and I'm allowed to call my friends by their first names) to come back because I'd at least get to talk to him, probably, if Gard really did have something he could use to see me. That's sort of why I was so eager when I sensed a presence at the edge of my grave. When I poked my head out, though, it wasn't John; it was Inez, the most famous ghost of Graceland cemetery.

Her dress was classically pretty, designed as some kind of Victorian thing, although I couldn't honestly tell if it was an original or a revival, and her face was doll-like, with wide, glassy blue eyes. I could imagine that she'd have been exceedingly pretty, if she grew up, but that wasn't a possibility anymore, not for her. A sharp pang stabbed through my heart as I recalled my own little girl, a girl with Susan's dark skin, Susan's hair, but my eyes. I swallowed the lump in my throat as best I could.

"You're new," she said, her voice high and cherubic, but there was a note of something jaded and cold underneath. It reminded me a little of Ivy, and that made me shudder.

"Yeah. I'm not very good at this ghosting business yet either. Think I should find a nice castle to haunt?" She laughed softly, and clicked her little parasol against the toe of her shiny black shoe.

"Perhaps you'd be better off. Monsters are said to stalk the halls of castles, correct?" I reeled back. Monsters? What was she talking about?

"I'm not a monster, kid. Monsters hurt people. I'm one of the good guys." Or at least I'd thought. I'd always thought that. Maybe I wasn't right. I'd crossed a lot of lines, in my last weeks. I'd done a lot of things that I was ashamed of, and the worst part was, I'd do it all again, and I knew I would, if it meant saving Maggie. The little girl smiled and sat down in the earth, swinging her little legs over the edge of my grave and letting them sway back and forth.

"Is it true?" I cocked my head.

"What?"

"What it says on your grave. Did you die doing the right thing?" I heard footsteps coming and suddenly didn't want to talk anymore, because that would be John. He was pretty far away, though; I could only just make out that he was calling my name. I had to continue speaking to the girl. I had to tell the truth.

"No. I… no. I didn't I died doing a lot of wrong things. I broke a lot of rules. A lot. I messed up. I shouldn't have done what I did, crossed the lines I crossed, but I felt like I had to. I'd do it all again, too, if it meant I was able to save who I saved." She smiled.

"Good intentions…" her voice trailed off."

"Pave the pathway to hell, I know."

"I like you," she giggled, "I really do. It'll almost be sad, when you change. Of course, maybe you won't change." She dropped down into the grave beside me on light feet and pulled me down to my knees, to her level, and she was preternaturally strong. I felt the sharp sting of fear cut through me as John's footsteps stopped on the grave's edge. I felt his eyes burning into me as Inez continued, "Because maybe you're already a monster." I felt myself start crying again because maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe I had become something I'd hate, a monster, for what I'd done. I had made a deal with Winter. I had created a power vacuum that could destroy Chicago, the world. I had killed without thought, without care, killed people who maybe didn't even deserve it, Thralls of the Red Court, and it hadn't mattered, and I'd do it again, and it wasn't… I was… I… my thoughts were cut off by a sharp voice.

"Get away from him and cease your blathering. The only monster I see there is you." John. He was defending me. Inez grinned with all her teeth.

"A mortal?" she turned to look at him, and then some type of understanding filled her face. "A mortal with powerful friends. This shade is important to you? I wonder why. There are far more interesting ones running about, by their graves. This one won't last long anyway. Too much substance to it, too much pain, too many memories. The wraiths, as well as the lemurs, will be quite drawn to it. Were I of a different, crueler nature, I should like to consume him myself. He'd offer quite a power boost to whoever finally gets him. The shades of wizards never last long, but I feel this one will have a shorter lifespan than most. Still. I suppose if this is where you wish to be, I'll leave you alone." And then she left. I stumbled to my feet, and John held out a hand to me for some reason.

"Come on. Come out of there," he said, his voice gentle, as if he were coaxing some kind of animal. I managed to laugh.

"John, I'm a ghost. Even if I could actually grab your hand, which I can't, I couldn't leave the grave. The sun would fry me." He paused, and then shook his head for a moment.

"It's true, then. That you're a ghost. I'd been hoping that this was some sort of a trick, that your current state was a bit less… permanent." I shrugged, and gestured that he could climb into the grave with me, if he wanted. He did so, carefully, and then sat in the dirt. I sat across from him.

"Well, it's pretty new to me too. I only just found out it's been six months. It still feels like yesterday to me, when I died, but apparently it's pretty common for shades to just kind of drift around in the ether for a while. I got special treatment, though, because apparently my death had some funny business surrounding it. I got sent back to find my killer. I've got no idea what I'm supposed to do after that, though." John swallowed.

"Perhaps stay? I'd… it's selfish of me, but I don't want you gone." I smiled, and he went tense for a second, before he went totally limp.

"There's a difference between dead and Gone, John. A big one. You know, though, you're the first one who believed right off the bat that I'm really the shade of Harry Dresden." His smile was small and tight.

"Admittedly, I've been fooled by imposters as well, but you… it all feels the same. I trust that you are him." I shrugged.

"Nah. A shade isn't the same thing as the person it came from. I'm just memories, right now, and because of the memories, I've got the same personality. The body and the soul are somewhere else, so I'm not technically Harry Dresden."

"You are, or at the least, you're enough. God, Harry. I missed you terribly." He held out his hand as if to touch me, but I pulled back some to avoid it.

"Yeah, I'd rather you not do that, sorry. It hurts when things touch me, because it passes through me and disrupts whatever it is that holds me together. The older ghosts don't really notice it anymore, but it still hurts me like hell. I was just brushing up against you, earlier, when you felt me." He nodded.

"I'll attempt to avoid it. I apologize. That was you, by the way? Not that girl?" I nodded.

"Yeah. She just showed up about ten minutes ago."

"She called you a monster." I smirked.

"She wasn't lying. Also, she's not a little girl, I'm pretty sure. She's something else, something that's taking the form of a girl, but she's not. In case you were wondering." John gritted his teeth.

"No, she was lying. You are the farthest being from a monster I've ever met." I snorted and grinned at him, crossed my legs in front of me carefully, keeping my thoughts of there being no spoon firmly in my head so that such a move would be possible.

"Liar. At least it's a nice lie though, I guess." He stared at me with bright eyes and gritted teeth, and reached out to me as if to hold me, but the movement was aborted in midair, which just made it look like he was grabbing for something I couldn't see.

"I am not lying to you, Harry. You are a hero, not a monster." I gave him a lopsided smile and laughed.

"Stars and Stones, can they not ever be the same thing? I'm the cause of this whole power vacuum thing, aren't I? I'm the one who killed all those people. I'm the one so many people were afraid of. I might've saved a lot of people, but a lot of people have died because of me, too. Hell, some of them have died just because they knew me. Anyway, John, you wouldn't be the first person who's lied to me to make me feel better. Sometimes lies are better, I get that. I lie a lot too. Well, I used to. Not so much anymore." He sighed.

"Ms. Murphy? I've often assumed you and she spend half your time lying to one another." I grinned.

"Nah, she's usually pretty honest with me. I've lied to her though, a lot. I've had to. She's too damned smart for her own good, sometimes, especially when we first met. She always asked questions I couldn't answer without getting my head chopped off. I wonder sometimes if anything would be different now if I'd taken the risk and told her everything sooner." He shrugged and leaned his head against the solidly packed mud wall behind him.

"You'd still be dead now. The only way that would've changed is if you'd just fucking agreed to work for me." I snorted.

"Yeah, mob ties would've certainly extended my lifespan, Johnny. I've known that my life wouldn't exactly be described as having longevity ever since I was sixteen." He gazed at me blankly, and it looked as if he were trying to detach himself from the conversation.

"Have you looked into Kincaid yet? About your death, I mean. There are very few people alive that could've possibly made the shot that killed you. He is one of the most prominent." I shifted my shoulders and leaned my head back, allowed my eyes to slide closed. It wasn't like he could do anything to me now anyway.

"I've considered it, yeah. I can't think of a reason for him to do it, though; I didn't owe him any money." I felt the cool sensation of a solid object passing near my knee, and shuddered.

"You do not seem to be reacting as poorly to my presence as you did when you were alive." My lips quirked upwards in a tight smile.

"Is that so? Well, the memories are a little clearer, now, without those silly little prejudices and things getting away. The stuff between us, I see it now as it actually was instead of how I assumed it was. You were usually one of the good guys, and you cared about me. Besides, there's no reason to be scared of you now. Unless you can call a wraith here or something, or a lemur, you can't do anything more to me. Hell's Bells, we couldn't even touch each other unless I pulled my spoon trick." He raised his eyebrow and laughed gently.

"Spoon trick?"

"Yup. There is no spoon. I can control shit, now. Like, I don't float through the ground because I don't think I should. I can lean against this wall because I know it should be solid. I could also probably touch you, if I tried, because I know you're supposed to be solid and I'm not trying to possess you. See?" I leaned forward and thought hard about the feeling of solid flesh under my hand, of life like how I remembered it. It worked. My intangible hand landed on solid skin, even though I couldn't actually feel anything, couldn't feel then texture of his suit or anything else under my hand. He gazed down at his chest, at the hand, with an almost shocking amount of pain in his face.

"It just feels cold. I can't… I can't even tell what your hand feels like. I see it there, but it's not truly there." I remembered what he'd said, what he felt, suddenly, and reeled away. I'd probably hurt him, just then, by showing off my little trick.

"Sorry. I, uh… sorry." He swallowed again and nodded.

"Quite alright. Now, Ms. Gard, along with giving me the salve I'm currently using to see you, gave me something I could put you in in order to carry you out in the sun." He opened up his jacket and from it pulled a tiny, gilt box inlaid with shimmering rubies. I raised my eyebrows at it.

"I think the logistics of that are kind of off. I'd be lucky to get a big toe into that, John." Startled laughter fell from his lips, and even he looked surprised by it. I couldn't help but feel like it'd been a while since he last laughed. He laughed until his voice went dry and cracked achingly, and he seemed to have some trouble bringing himself back under control. A lot (too much) had happened in the last six months.

"It's bigger on the inside," he said, a grin still in his tone.

"Well, either way. I should probably stay here, in case anyone else needs me." The atmosphere changed with nearly frightening speed. John had always been good at that.

"No. Miss Murphy has not come here once since your death. The others have only come together, and even then not often. Also, thatthing is here, the one pretending to be a little girl. I would like you close to me, and even if I did not want such a thing, I'd not be able to think if I considered for a moment you'd be assaulted in such a way again." I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms.

"John. I'm fine. And besides, I already told me that she wasn't lying. I did bad things before I died, John. I would do them all again, and again, and again. Do you not know what happened, Marcone? The whole story? The… the last thing I did, before I went down to South America?" It had been cold. Oh, god, but it had been cold. She had been cold. I was still cold. Maybe I always would be. I deserved it. She'd been a force of nature. I wondered if I could've even resisted her if I'd wanted to. I swallowed thickly and the feeling of it made me feel alive again for a split second.

"I know that you wiped out the Red Court. I know that doing so has saved many lives." I smiled.

"And ended a whole hell of a lot of others. I know about the power vacuum, John. And I didn't do what I did to save the lives I did anyway. It was all for one person. I put my friends at risk. Stones, I don't even know everything I ended up doing to Molly. It was just for one person. I… I killed Susan, John, for this girl." I hadn't known a spirit could shake. I hadn't known John could look quite like he did, just then, so shocked, so… I didn't have the word for it.

"Susan? This other girl must be… important to you. However, Miss Rodriguez had been well on her way to turning for quite some time, hadn't she?" I choked, and I was crying again. He reached out and tried to grab me before he could stop himself, and his hands passed quickly through my body. I howled. He yelled out rapid fire apologies.

"Yeah. Not for… not for why you're thinking, though. She was… well, fuck, it isn't like you'd do anything to her anyway. She was my daughter. Mine and Susan's. Her name's Maggie. After my mom. I always… it was nice of Susan, to do that for me. Even though she never told me about her until the Red Court took her. And yeah, she was. Still. I didn't… I wasn't still in love with her, really. Hadn't been for… a while. I don't know how long. But a while. She was still the mother of my child, though, and I… I still cared about her. She was important. That was only the second time I killed someone like that, when I had a choice to do something else. The second time I killed someone I used to love." I was looking at him, but more through him than anything.

"She is alright, correct? I had already known that your daughter had been taken, but I never heard of her status."

"She's fine. I asked that I not be told where they sent her, in case… in case someone caught me and tried to look in my head for her. Or in case I changed. Did you hear about the deal I made yet? About how I agreed to become the new Winter Knight?" His hands were shaking too.

"Yes. I also understand why you did it. All you did, Harry… you are no monster. You are human, and therefore flawed. You… you have made mistakes. I have made many as well. To err is to be human, as they say. Do not hate yourself because you did what you had to do, because you were not perfect." I totally didn't hiccup, I swear.

"Christ. Never thought I'd actually wish I could hug you, you bastard. Look, open the fancy little box. I'll go with you, for a while at least. Maybe you can help me find who offed me in the first place."

"Thank you. Might you tell me one last thing, however?" I shrugged.

"What?"

"The second person you killed who you once loved?" Something shifted on my face, and he seemed to want to take his question back, but I held my hands up in a gesture to calm him.

"Don't worry about it. It was a long time ago. There's nothing you could do with information like this now anyway. I'm dead. You already know I was an orphan, right?"

"Since your sixth birthday, yes."

"Groovy. Yeah. On my tenth birthday, I got adopted by a Wizard, a former Warden and everything. His name was Justin DuMorne. He was… he was so good to me. He didn't call me a freak. He said I was special. He taught me magic. I respected him. I wanted to make him proud of me. Hell's Bells, I loved him. More than anyone else because he saved me. The first spell I ever learned was Flickum Bicus, you know? Wanna know where that came from? When he tried to teach me that spell, I cheated. I used a Bic lighter. He said I was better than that." I spat the words out as if they made me sick, and in some ways maybe they did. "So I tried again, and I lit the fireplace, but instead of his word, I used Flickum Bicus, so I'd always remember that I was better. And it worked. I did the spell. He gave me a baseball mitt, as a reward. That was the first real gift I ever got. I loved him so much, all because he saved me. Then I found out he just wanted to make me into his very own little enforcer. He had my foster sister on the couch one day, when I came home from school early, and he'd put a Thrall on her. He tried to do the same to me. I ran off, and he sent a demon after me. I just barely managed to get away from it, got in touch with Lea, and then I burned the bastard alive." John stared.

"I do not know whether to apologize or to express that I'm happy you got to him before me." I grinned. He was breathing too fast. It's funny what you notice when you're a ghost, isn't it? I moved closer to him, and his breathing sped up even more.

"Gonna open up that box any time soon, Johnny?"

"Of course, Harry," he sighed out, the words almost a caress. He opened the tiny golden box with a strange sort of gentleness, and I felt a strange sort of tugging centered near where my heart once sat. I stepped closer to the box lazily, a strange sort of sway to my steps. "Come now, Harry. Gard gave me this just for you. Ah, and thank you for allowing me to call you by your first name now, by the way." I laughed before I shrugged and got even closer to the golden box. It tugged at me harder.

"No problem, man. Just doesn't really seem like much of a big deal anymore, you know?" He coughed, and suddenly started crying. Not loudly, not theatrically, but they were there, shining, pale tears on his cheeks.

"Yes. I'm afraid I do understand," he told me, and then I felt the box suck me into it.

* * *

It looked like the inside of my old apartment, within the box, down to the last detail. I wondered if it looked like this because I wanted it to, or because John had Gard make it like this. I walked carefully over to the old second hand couch and sat down, its protesting creak beautiful in my ears, its softness pillowing me delicately. All my books sat, bent and destitute, on my bookshelf. My fireplace blazed. I felt a million memories beating me at once, all the things about this place I loved, all the amazing things that had happened here. I curled up and allowed the bittersweet feelings to wash over me. My feet felt cold, and that made me laugh. I yanked the throw blanket down from the top of the couch and wrapped myself in it tightly. I sat there like that for a while, gazing up at the ceiling, halfway expecting to hear Mrs. Spunklecrief stomping around upstairs, halfway expecting Mouse to come bulldozing in and pounce on top of me, halfway expecting Mister to barrel into the door, begging to be let in.

I stood up and wandered around, some, found everything how it should've been, even the trapdoor to my subbasement. When I went down there, though, Bob wasn't there; his books were, all my potion ingredients were, but he was stark in his absence. I supposed that living things couldn't be reproduced here, even if they weren't living in the strictest sense of the word. I stepped back upstairs and pulled one of my older books from myself. It even felt the same as always, creased and bent and singed in a couple of places, with a clump of pages torn out from when Mister and Mouse got into a fight over it a few years back. The fire felt hot. I dropped onto the rug in front of it and stretched out, like I did sometimes before, when I was tired and cold and didn't want to move. I felt like I'd been in there for about an hour or three when I was suddenly not alone anymore.

John made a striking figure, standing on my coffee table (was it really mine anymore, now that it didn't exist?). A new wave of nausea overcame me for a second, but I got over it relatively quickly and forced myself up to my feet.

"Uh. Hiya, John." He smirked.

"Gard created this thing so that I could go into it well. I quite like what you've done with the place, by the way." I grinned.

"That so? Pretty neat working, then. I'm going to guess I'm solid in here?" He nodded, and I walked forward to poke him in the chest. "Cool. Now off my damned table, dumbass. You're not giving a rallying speech or anything. You have absolutely no reason to be up there." He laughed quietly.

"Well, it puts me at eye level with you." I snorted.

"If you wanted to do that you should've brought a step ladder with you. Murph has threatened to before, you know. I think it was to hit me with, but still." The memory flitted clearly behind my eyes. Goddamn, but this would take some getting used to. "Where are we, anyway? The box, I mean."

"My mansion, at least until nightfall. After that point, I'll assume you'd like to leave." He hopped off the table to drop onto my couch and recline there. I joined him. It didn't remind me of anything that had ever happened previously, but I almost wished it did. Seeing John like I did now, without the old things I'd just assumed getting in the way, I'd have liked to get to know him a little better than I had. I've discovered a lot of regrets I didn't even know I had, because of this. And here I thought dying was easy, compared to life. Stupid universe always has to go and fuck with me. I'd have thought that not technically existing anymore would've been a way to get me at least one or two free passes. Or that maybe I could've cashed in on the bullshit I dealt with when I was alive to get a couple of nice deals.

"Yeah. I've got a lot to do. Rescue Mort, help Fitz, find my killer, save the world for the… uh… this is the thirteenth time, isn't it? Whatever. Somewhere around that. But yeah. Busy little bee is me."

"I'll help you, of course. Who is Fitz?"

"Some kid, shot up Murph's place. He and his little friends are being controlled by some asshole though. Small timer with a talent for messing with people's heads that wants to wave his proverbial magical dick around by making his own cult of loyal teenagers. Fitz can hear me, though. I promised him I'd meet him tonight, help him and his friends out. Anyway, none of this is your mess. I don't need you to help me clean it up." He gave me that particular look that people always give me, when they thought I was being an idiot. I was maybe a little too used to it.

"Harry, if someone is using children in order to make their metaphorical dick feel larger, I assure you, it's my business." I cackled, like, full-on which cackled, I'll admit it. Look, I just don't ever expect to hear John say stuff like 'metaphorical dick', okay? It surprises me. And also brings out the catty bitch in me, I guess.

"Well, you know you'd have to deal with him mostly without me, right? I'll help as much as I can, but my metaphorical magical dick, while much larger than his, is kind of incapable of being waved around right now. It'll re-kill me if I use too much magic right now, which is not my goal at the moment, because I have recently been informed that me dying right now would result in me being the Gone kind of gone. Funnily enough, I'm against that." He nodded.

"I've dealt with many small-timers on my own, while you've been away. I can handle another." I smiled crookedly, and it felt kind of weird with a mostly solid face again.

"That so? You talk like I'm coming back or something." His hand settled on my arm and gripped there tightly, and a taut smile appeared on his face. I was once again confronted with how he'd aged since I last saw him, with the dark circles that made him look like he'd gone three rounds with a brick wall and gotten KO'd all three rounds.

"You will. You are. I will not let you leave me again." I shivered.

"You're a badass with balls of steel, John, I'll give you that, but I don't think you can find my body, which I've been told is unavailable at the moment, and somehow manage to shove me back in it." He stilled.

"Unavailable?"

"Yeah. They would've put me back in that instead of just sending me out like this if they could've, but it's somewhere that they can't get it. I haven't been able to figure that part out yet either." His hand tightened. I was reminded of the elephant in the room, of his apparent love for me, suddenly. I wondered if we should talk about that or something. I gazed at him and felt a pang somewhere that couldn't have been my heart, because it wasn't there anymore. This body felt cold even to me, because it wasn't actually real. My feet, in particular, were still ice blocks. I swallowed. John was a good man. He was brave. He was funny as hell, when I was willing to admit it. He had always helped me. He helped those that couldn't help themselves, too. His moral code was probably stricter than mine. He cared about me, of all people. More flashes of his face in various times of our… friendship, I guessed I could call it, shot across my mind. I could see the love in all of it, now, at least the later images. I finally recognized the flirting in at least half the conversations we'd had with one another. I finally recognized that I'd always given as good as I'd gotten with him.

"They?" he whispered. He seemed to be getting lost in memories as well.

"Yeah. The angels, Uriel especially. He's always had a thing with me. His department was the one that sent me back. Murphy's dad is there, Jack." My own voice was a little hazy. "Hey, John? Were you telling the truth, when you were talking to me earlier? Before you knew I was actually there?" His smile was thin and wavered a little.

"If you mean do I really love you, then yes, I do. I have for quite some time. My greatest regret, in fact, the moment I heard about what happened to you, was that I'd never told you. I'd always been afraid of what you'd do, what you'd say. I couldn't have handled your rejection, not then." And that's what he would've gotten, I knew that. I hadn't been… I hadn't been very open, when I was alive. Stuff like that had always scared the hell out of me. Hell's Bells, I never had been very open with sexuality, even after the things Susan and Anastasia had dragged out of me, and there had been a lot, a lot of shameful things I hated admitting to and hated coming to even more, but they'd had me admitting it all. There'd been… I'd used mentioned John more than once, some nights. I hadn't ever been shy about admitting that he was a handsome man. He still was, even with the extra years piled on him. I wanted to apologize to him, for some reason. I wanted to kiss him, too. Friend. Lover. Friend. John. I wasn't sure anymore. This wasn't the kind of thing I should have to consider, anymore. Hadn't I wanted to try things with Murphy, before I died? Maybe I had. Or maybe I'd just wanted someone, and I did love Murphy, with all of myself, for all of forever. She was my best friend. Maybe I'd thought it would work when it wouldn't because I'd wanted comfort desperately, that day. I didn't want to look at that with a clear head anymore, any of this.

"Oh. You're a good man, you know that, John? I haven't ever been very good at stuff like this. I… look, I've always thought you were fit as hell with the prettiest set of eyes I've ever seen. Stones, don't look at me like that, I'm telling the truth! I mean, you're making me analyze a lot about myself right now. I only just admitted to myself that you were my friend. Now you're making me dig out every last fucking fantasy I've ever had of you and look at it objectively because I can't look at it in any other way like this, and it's hard. It's… I'm not sure I like what I see, John, because what I see is telling me that I love you too." He gazed at me. And then he lunged forward and kissed me square on the lips, hard and rough and all teeth and so real it made me feel a little sick. This was… I was dead. This was wrong in a million ways and I couldn't name a single one just then. He pulled away with hooded eyes and red lips.

"You speak of my eyes as if they're nicer than yours, Harry. Christ. Do you know what I've been going through without you? Constant fear, fear that I'll become a beast in human skin, a monster in a suit, without your influence. Fear that you were in pain, that you didn't get the paradise you deserved even in death. Fear that wherever you were, you hated me. Fear that I'd fuck something up and Chicago, the world, would fall. You don't understand what a pivotal being you are, always have been. How important. How necessary. I question whether you ever will. I want you to come back, Harry, to be alive again." I tried a smile, but I don't think it worked.

"Yeah? I want that too. Funny how the world is a bitch about giving people what they want." And we cried together. I don't know for how long. I just know that it felt like the most beautiful thing I've ever done. And that made me sob even harder. John's hands shook where they held me. I wondered how big of a mess we, my other important people, the whole damned world, had become.


	2. Chapter 2

Marcone's POV

I held him until my watch pinged, informing me that night had fallen, and that it would be safe for him to leave the box. My face felt hot and sticky from the crying, and his was somewhat red, splotchy in a few places. He snuffled. I had to smile, and kissed him softly as I stood. I held out my hand and pulled him to his feet as well. I whispered the words I'd been given, words from a tongue I couldn't name, and with them we slipped from the box and back to the real world. I found myself missing it immediately. Moonlight streamed in from a wide picture window, and Harry began to walk outside immediately. I had to run to keep up with him, for his strides were even longer without silly things like gravity or friction to hold him back.

The moonlight filtered through his pale, ephemeral form, and I was reminded of all the ghost stories I'd heard as a child, stories of gorgeous Victorian women who sat on park benches, and thought that they had nothing on the ghost of a scarred, damaged wizard with a mop of shaggy dark hair and wide, doggish brown eyes. He drifted on and on, quickly and dangerously, and he slipped a gun from the pocket of his coat. It was an old thing, dull and carved with a half-faded scene of a happy family. He saw me looking at it.

"It was a gift," he said, and his voice was just how I remembered it. I felt my heart clench because he never should've died in the first place, and I knew that. I wished I could've done if for him. The world needed men like him far more than it needed men like me. "From one of Mort's ghosts. This is the kind of weapon that works in the spirit world. I can kill wraiths and lemurs and stuff with it, but nothing with a pulse." I nodded.

"Likely a very valuable attribute nonetheless." He nodded and stopped where he stood, suddenly.

"Yeah. Look, I need to find Molly, okay? I'm going to try a tracking spell, but I can't do it like how I usually would. So, uh, can you go that-a-way or something? So I can focus a little better?" I managed a smile.

"How flattering, that I can distract you so easily." He rolled his eyes and smirked.

"Don't get too cocky now, Johnny. I could probably possess you or something now, and make you go confess your undying love to… hm… Charity." I shuddered. I had no desire to imagine just exactly what Mrs. Carpenter would do to me if I ever said such a thing to her. I could only assume it would be terribly painful. Once more I had the feeling that this Harry before me was the real one, not an apparition, not an imposter. I recalled one such instance where a fairy had taken his form and come to my door with a smile. She had kissed me with his lips, professed a love years in the making. I'd been so happy. And then she'd stabbed a knife into my back, narrowly missed my spine. Hendricks called me lucky. Gard called me careless. And now the real Harry knew how I felt, claimed to feel the same, now that it was too damned late. I saw his intangible body start to sway, and he mumbled softly, gently, easily, words I couldn't quite pick up and wouldn't understand if I could. His body suddenly jerked in one direction, and he started to move. "Come on, I've got a fix on her," he said.

I followed, but with a touch more nervousness than him. The Carpenter girl had become quite dangerous, upon taking on her new moniker of the Ragged Lady. She'd threatened me more than once, quite severely. Gard had ended up putting the poor thing in chains more than once, to keep her off of me. She'd been certain I'd been involved in Harry's death for quite sometimes, and I often felt her suspicion even now. I wondered if it would even be safe to allow her to know that I'd returned from Rome. Harry ducked into a crumbling tunnel, and I was confronted with the sight of the girl having things thrown at her by a lovely red haired woman, saw her attempting to form a shield. Harry snarled and strode forward, his hands out in front of him in a pose I'd seen a million times, and then, then he seemed to realize something, and he simply wilted. The sight made me wince. He seemed to decide to yell instead of attack.

"Lea! Lea, what the hell are you doing? Stop! Molly, Molly, damn it, come here!" I wasn't expecting anything to happen, but the scene before me ceased. Molly, her hand pale and thin and shaking, slipped a tuning fork from one of the many folds of her clothing. I recognized them, the fabric scraps, as Harry's clothes. The leather duster, specifically, was wrapped in thin ribbons around her midsection. I felt somewhat sick. The girl had loved him, or so I'd heard, perhaps more than she should have. Harry certainly felt guilty over what she'd become, certainly placed the fault upon himself as he always did.

"Godson," the red head said, and she flicked her eyes over to where Harry stood as if she could see him. Her eyes, with vertical slits for pupils, were frozen with something quite insane and quite wild. A fairy. A powerful one, at that.

"What the hell are you doing to my apprentice?" Harry snarled, stepping closer to her. She laughed.

"Training her. You left the job unfinished, it seems. My Queen bade me care for her in your stead." His fists clenched.

"If this is to make her the new Winter Knight, I'll kill you now, even if you finish me off for good. You're hurting her. Pain isn't the teacher she deserves." She reached out a hand and held his cheek. Molly looked on with wide blue eyes, finally showing her youth again.

"She will not be the new Winter Knight, my child. Although, your sudden… shall we say absence, has deeply bothered our Queen, you know. She is angered. Without a being in the position of the Winter Knight, the balance is upset. She has been discussing the other option she once spoke with you about. By the way, sweet, you say that she does not deserve to be taught with pain. Is what was good enough for you not good enough for her? Come now, Godson, in your memory I have been far more lenient with her than I was with you."

"Pain is a good teacher, Lea, I'm not refuting that, and it's fast, but she's got time. Plenty of it. Let her learn slowly, and be gentle with her."

"There isn't time for that, Harry," Molly spoke up quietly. He reeled around.

"Don't talk like that, Mols." She smiled sweetly, softly, and stumbled up to her feet. Her bad leg nearly buckled twice under her weight. She turned her gaze to me, and the honeyed warmth turned to frigid distaste.

"Marcone. What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I desired to help Harry. I met him at his grave during daylight, and allowed him sanctuary until now, nightfall." She glared.

"As if I believe you."

"I cannot make you trust me, Ms. Carpenter, nor can you make me trust you. Harry has accepted my help, and so I will give it to him until it is no longer necessary."

"John, Molly. Don't fight. I care about both of you. Lea, though, I want you to-" And then the Servitors came. They fell on Molly like a swarm, and when I turned my eyes away for a few seconds to check out everything else, I found that the fairy woman, Lea, Harry had said, was gone. I turned my attention back the Servitors and drew my gun.

* * *

We fought hard, yet they seemed dead set and determined to take the Ragged Lady out. They had her backed into a corner, and no amount of her illusions could make them give in. I had lost sight of Harry long before. When I saw him again, it was with sudden brightness and clarity, standing beside the fairy.

"Stop this, godmother," he told her. "Please." I felt frozen. Please, he said. Begged. Harry Dresden did not beg. I hated her for making him do it, for causing him such a pain as that. She smiled, sweet and innocent and lovely and disgusting.

"I cannot. There is a lesson here, for the both of you." I managed to land a bullet into one of the Servitor's chest. He fell to the earth, but he was soon replaced by another. There were far too many of them, I could tell it. Harry snarled at her and shot off through the air, too quick to see, until he reached Molly's side, at which point he disappeared in a bright flash of light. A shock of fear flooded through me until she spoke, and there was something deep and resonant in her voice that could've only been Harry.

"Defendarius!" she cried. A bright blue, almost lens-like, shield appeared in front of her, concaved a bit. An attack from the Servitors slammed into it and sent the girl flying backwards. Her lips peeled back from her teeth, and I was unsure of whether that was her or Harry. She pulled herself up to her feet, and another word, this one a word I'd never heard before, lilting yet harsh, was forced from her mouth. A wall of flame burst forth in front of her, and one of the Servitors died almost immediately. The rest of them, though, seemed smart enough to avoid the flame. They were distracted enough, however, that they didn't even notice my bullets. The battle ended. Harry appeared beside the girl, who panted tiredly and reached out blindly as if to grab him. I heard his hiss of pain as her flailing hand cut through his shoulder. Harry appeared to have faded some. The fairy woman said something, and gave Molly money after some words from Harry, but I can't recall much beyond that. Harry was fading. My worry yet again bit at me cruelly.

* * *

Harry and Molly led me to some sort of a diner, and all the patrons gazed at her and me fearfully. I supposed it was understandable. Molly sat her tuning fork on the center of the table as if it were a decoration.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she whispered, and I could tell she didn't intend for me to hear. "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for, grasshopper? All of this… it's my fault isn't it? I shouldn't have let you go there with us, not with the psychic throwback death gives you, not with how dangerous I knew it'd be. I knew what it'd do to you, but… Molly, I didn't care. I was so… I messed up, Molly. I'm the one who needs to be asking for forgiveness, from you and everybody." She shook her head.

"It was my choice. But I'm letting you down, Harry. I'm doing things I know you wouldn't like, but I have to! Your shadow is gone now; that means Chicago stopped being a safe haven where a Warlock wouldn't dream of flexing his or her muscles. I had to put the shadow back, so I became the Ragged Lady. People are afraid of me, now, like they were of you. I just… I only kill the ones who deserve it. Scum, rapists, monsters. I can't just go around blowing things up like you did. I'm not… strong like you." I saw his hand reach out, and ghostly fingers brushed over her knuckles. She shivered.

"Stop it, Mols. You're strong, you always have been. I know why you're doing this. Hell, I've been tempted to do the same. In the end, I guess I kind of did. But don't. I don't want you to end up like me. If the Council figures out what you're doing-" She cut him off.

"Fuck the Council!" she trilled, "Fuck them! They don't give a damn about me, about any of us, especially not you! They wouldn't even… they wouldn't even clear your name when you died! They're still calling you all those things, a killer, and I… I hate them! I just want to do what you would. And this is the only way I can." She tossed the money the fairy had given her on the table and ran off. Harry curled into himself, the guilt wafting off of him in thick, palpable waves. I stood and led him out, after which he walked me to a thick snowdrift. A young man, quick and thin, watched my approach with a wild animal's eyes.

"Fitz, hey! Calm down. He's just here because… uh… he's going to help the both of us." The boy bounced on the balls of his feet.

"Christ. Am I going insane? I shouldn't be here because the damned voice in my head told me to show up." I snorted, and Harry joined me in the noise.

"Aw, don't discount the voices in your head, Fitz! I had one, when I was alive. He was my ass backwards conscience, though. Sort of a dick, now that I think of it. Anyway. If you want, you can just consider me your regular conscience, and John here is just my convenient packaging. I'm still probably sort of a dick though." Fitz managed a small smile.

"Yeah, you are. Now, how are you going to help me get the guns?" Harry shook his head.

"I'm not. John isn't either. What you're going to do is show me where the Big Hoods are hiding. Then I'm taking you to a friend of mine named Father Forthill, and he's going to look after you while I go get your friends away from Mister Dumbfuck Mind Magic Man." A shocked giggle fell from the boy's mouth, and yes, Harry did have that particular skill, didn't he? He always had. Probably always would.

"Dumbfuck?" Harry grinned.

"Yup. Silly guy, thinking his magic dick is bigger than mine. Ha! I have the biggest magic dick in Chicago! Or, I used to at least. I say my magical dick has left enough of an imprint around here that I can still claim it, at least for a while. Still, I've had experience with guys like him. Enthralling kids makes him feel like a badass. I'll deal with him, yeah? As soon as you show me where the Big Hoods are." Fitz nodded waveringly, and he led us to a not at all pretty building. Harry wouldn't allow Fitz or myself to enter, in fact demanding that I take to boy to his priest friend, and saying that he'd be back at the mansion by sun up. While I didn't quite trust the words, I trusted him, so I did as he asked me and left with the young man.

* * *

It took some doing, but eventually Forthill trusted that Harry had sent us. The man never had particularly liked me, no matter how much money I donated or how many people I sent to him or helped him with. I supposed I couldn't really blame him. I was not a good man. I supposed that was why I loved Harry so damned much; every being as dark as me must have its light. Harry was mine. I supposed I could only hope that he was brilliant enough for the both of us, brilliant enough to hide the thousands of layers of sin that had so polluted me. Still, I supposed that the sight of someone in need, as Fitz obviously was, was too much for the old Father to say no to. The boy looked tempted to rob the place. I stopped such thoughts with well-placed glares and a few 'accidental' flashes of the various weapons on my person. I stayed there until the sun began to rise, but at that point I zipped back to my mansion. Gard stopped me on the way in, her hand a solid, unyielding, immovable force upon my chest.

"I have found his body, Mr. Marcone. It resides with Queen Mab on that isle where your greatest suffering occurred. It seems that she is using the island's power to keep his body breathing whilst his spirit is otherwise occupied. The shade, Mr. Marcone, is no ordinary ghost. It is a bare soul. If something happens to him like that, John, he will be totally eradicated with no chance of recovery. He took a great risk in returning as he did." I clenched my jaw. Mab. Of course it was Mab. Wasn't it always, lately?

"Get his body back, as soon as you can. And offer Mab some sort of substitute, something to clear the debt he owes her. Whatever she wants, so long as I can give it." Gard nodded and seemed to almost disappear. She'd always been quite skilled at such things, I supposed, leaving and arriving without a trace. It disturbed me, somewhat, but she was loyal and good at her job. Besides, Nathan liked her.

I found Harry in my bedroom beside the golden box, my shades drawn. He was sitting on my bed as if he were more comfortable than anyone else in the world, just then. The candles I'd had put there, the ones I lit whenever I had a headache, danced with happy flame, and the candlelight made him look even more intangible than before. I missed his bright colors and brighter flame. Oh, yes, I was happy to simply see him again, obviously, but the original pleasure had been dulled by this strange, unending despair that he was not whole. I repeated to him what Gard told me, and he gave an annoyed, breathless laugh.

"Hell's Bells, fucking Uriel. Should've guessed he was running some kind of endgame with this. He's the 'hit twenty birds with one stone' type of guy. He must be wanting me to deal with her too, somehow. Is there any way we can get the damned thing back? I'll still probably be close to worthless, magic-wise, but at least I'd lose the risk of being, you know, completely removed from all planes of existence." I smiled and sat beside him.

"I have people on it. I do not think Mab will be willing to release it lightly, however." Harry shrugged his thin shoulders delicately.

"Yeah, she's kind of a bitch. I mean, she's already fucked me in literally every sense of the word. I don't see what else she could possibly want from me." The words made an icy cord wrap around my spine, but now wasn't the time for all that anyway. I allowed a shaking sigh to flow from my throat.

"I'm sure. Did you discover anything at that hideout?" He closed off, some.

"Yeah. Mort's there. Corpsetaker, the Grey Ghost, is torturing him with the wraiths. She wants his body. And not in the fun way, in the creepy possession way. Anyway, it's box time for me, I think. The sun is getting bright enough to cut through that curtain there, and I think it'd be pretty damned embarrassing if I erased myself from existence because it was a sunny day." I nodded and stood to open the box for him, after which he filtered inside it. I followed him shortly after, and we both immediately settled on his couch.

He, though, twisted around shortly thereafter in order to sprawl over my lap, his gangly limbs hanging off various parts of the couch like bits of a marionette. He tilted his head back and grinned at me, his eyes full of playful, impish light. Like this, I felt better near him, but it still wasn't enough, not really. I supposed that, in a way, his solidarity here only made me long more for him to be solid always. I settled a mindless hand on top of his head and he sighed as if I'd just given him the greatest gift in the universe.

"You act as if no one has ever granted you this type of attention, Harry." His eyes closed when he smiled this time, and I couldn't help but feel as if he was doing it to hide something from me.

"Don't be an idiot, John." I raked my fingers through his hair, soft and thick in my hands, one more time, then gave it a slight tug before I dropped the handful and settled my hand on his chest instead. He whined quietly, and then gritted his teeth as if the noise had been freed totally without his consent, as if he really and truly hoped I hadn't heard it or wouldn't mention it. I smirked.

"Cute."

"Fuck off, John," he grumbled. I snickered.

"Yes, yes. Did I get it right, by the way? Am I the only one who treats you like this?" His grin was as sharp as a knife.

"What, like a fluffy bunny rabbit? Yeah. People don't exactly want to pet the loose cannon pyromaniac closer to insane than he'd like to admit wizard on a day to day basis. Murphy did it once, after a rough case and when I was so doped up on painkillers she thought I wouldn't remember it. Thomas did it periodically too, when he lived with me. That's about it, though. Oh, no, wait, Ivy did it that one time by accident when she was trying to pet Mister and I was laying on the rug beside him." Raith, of course, the bastard. He'd probably been doing it to feed off of him. I recalled suddenly an occasion shortly after Harry had died, when I'd nearly ran into him at the cemetery. He'd had some woman, a pretty thing with pale white hair and a thin face, on his arm, her fingers gripping the leather of his jacket, with him. I'd thought it cruel of him, to visit the grave of his former lover with a new one on his arm. He had left roses by the gaping hole in the earth, though, and they were some of the loveliest I'd seen before. I'd thought Harry deserved such beauty, so I'd left them there, even had Gard make a potion to make them last longer. I'd brought him a beer, that day, I recalled.

"Hush, Harry. Of anyone, you deserve some affection, don't you? Certainly from someone other than Mister Raith." I saw a biting flash of his teeth in his next wicked grin.

"You jealous, Johnny? Thomas and I weren't ever together, you know that, right? That was just a rumor. I actually started a lot of it myself when I went into his new apartment and got caught. I played like I was his scorned boyfriend so they'd let me stay, and they called Chicago PD, who saw me like that, and who gossip like high school girls. The ones from when he was living with me were his and Butters' fault, though, because Thomas wanted to fuck with the poor little mortician, so he kissed me on the top of my head, then pretended I was just being shy. Butters always did think I liked men after that." I rolled my eyes and did my damndest to hide my relief. Perhaps I had been a bit jealous. Still, I did question who Raith actually was if Harry allowed him the privilege of living in his house, something even his most serious girlfriends hadn't done. My fingers tapped out a beat on his sternum.

"I believe you do like men, Harry, otherwise you and I might have a bit of an issue, as I am, if you hadn't noticed, a man."

"Yeah, I do, but I like women too. I'm bisexual, most wizards are. I was just never very open about it because I figured I was weird enough. I didn't think I needed the added stigma of being willing to sleep with a guy added on to the whole 'everyone either thinks I'm a psycho or thinks I'm a miracle worker' thing. I got over it some after I had a few girlfriends that insisted on being told pretty much every horrible awful terrible thing I'd ever considered doing in bed ever." My fingers continued their movement as we sat there together, and I wondered how things would've been different if all this happened earlier, before he'd died, if I'd gotten him so open and kind and loving before now, before it was too damned late.

"I suppose I should count myself lucky, then, that I'm the first you admitted such affections to." I almost expected him to tell me that, well, actually he had had a boyfriend before, and he was the best man ever, and he was not a criminal, and he was far more attractive, and he was a wizard, and he knew all of Harry's secrets and helped him work through all of his issues. It was quite common for Harry to ruin things for me like that, and to be honest, I was even preparing myself for the words.

"Yeah, you should. I wouldn't say stuff like this to many people, even dead." His honesty was a battering ram to my chest, and he seemed to notice that said honesty had surprised me, from the way his chest vibrated with a chuckle. "I should tell you the truth more often. You're really funny when I do." I cleared my throat as if that would save me any face, and was just resolving to shut my damned mouth and avoid more embarrassment when I was somehow wrenched from my place in that little slice of paradise with him.

* * *

Once I tumbled onto my bedroom floor, I stumbled up to my feet and caught sight of Gard standing before me, her blue eyes frozen and a small rune clasped between her hands. I glared at her as if it would have any effect, as if she did or should hold any fear of me. Her expression didn't change as she spoke, and it was unnerving how her eyes remained perfectly fixed on me. I had never been able to truly understand just how powerful, how inhuman, how strange, how immortal the woman was, until that second, at which point I actually almost feared her.

"He is dead, Mr. Marcone. These actions you are taking, gallivanting with his bare soul, will only harm you in the end. There is no guarantee that he will be returned to life, John, and even if there were, there is certainly no guarantee that he will be the same, that he will not be Winter's pet. I have spoken to Mab, Mr. Marcone, and she is quite unwilling to part with his body. Even the island's genius loci seems to want to hold onto him, or the shell of him, at the least. Also, you have guests; the young mortician and a younger boy. It seems they would like to speak with Mr. Dresden's shade." I gazed at her with a coldness in my own eyes to match the words she gave me. What right did she have, I wondered, to tell me what would hurt me? I'd do as I would.

"I'll take the box and speak with them, of course." I felt my chest press out some, my jaw tense and raise. She sighed at me and her arms crossed loosely over her chest. I'd never noticed before, but she was quite tall, even when not in heels. I wondered where Hendricks was taking her this evening that required such a pretty dress, but no heels. Perhaps dancing. I wondered if Harry could dance, then shook my head. Now wasn't the time for such musing. I turned and picked up the box carefully, and it felt far warmer in my hand than it had before Harry had been placed within it. This box… I'd guard it for the rest of my life. I shouldered passed Gard and went into my front room where I found Mr. Butters, a young man with wiry black hair and blue rabbit's eyes standing beside the boy from before, Fitz.

"M-Mr. Marcone," Butters said, inclining his head a bit at me, his bottom lip wavering a bit but his eyes solid and sure of himself. He was frightened of me, many were, but he was still willing to stand against me in ways that few ever had. I did have some respect for him, for that. He clutched a human skull in his hand, one with glowing orange lights in its eyes sockets that flickered around the room rapidly. Fitz still appeared terrified of me, yet it was obvious that he wanted to hide said fact desperately, wanted to seem older than he truly was.

"Mr. Butters, hello." The skull spoke up before the mortician could reply.

"Johnny! How's it hanging? Damn, I knew you'd always wanted to put Harry in a pretty cage and hear him sing for you, but I didn't ever think you'd actually do it. He doing okay in there?" I stared at the object, and found that I vaguely recognized its voice as one I'd heard a few times behind closed doors in the Chicago Alliance's headquarters. This had been the thing they'd all been so happy to discuss with? I wondered for a moment what it was as I felt Harry knocking around in the box, as if he wanted out. My thumb stroked over the sides of the object, as I couldn't release him, not in a room with windows, like this one.

"It is not a cage, it is a device that I can use to allow him to travel in daylight, in the same way that that skull there appears to function for you. He's perfectly fine; I'd not hurt him for anything." The lights burned holes in my skin as if they were attempting to see something, some twitch, which would pin me as a liar. It wouldn't find any, not even if I had been lying. All my twitches had long been trained away. It finally seemed satisfied.

"Of course not. He's cool, boss. Harry's fine." Butters nodded.

"Good. Can he hear us?" I nodded.

"He should be able to."

"Awesome. Look, Harry, we need to go get Father Forthill. He went to Fitz's hideout to confront Aristedes, the man he was with. He'll need help." Harry knocked at the walls harder, and finally a voice emanated quietly from the golden confines.

"Damn it, that… damn it. How long ago? I don't know how long a guy will keep someone who doesn't kiss his damned feet alive."

"A few hours. I came by the church and found Fitz there. He told me what had happened, and said he knew you," Butters said.

"Shit, yeah. Come on. We've got to go." Butters nodded.

"Get out of there and get in Bob's skull. It'll be safer if we're only carrying what we absolutely need." My hands tightened around the box, and I felt Harry squirming and wriggling around inside. I didn't want to. I wanted to keep him in my hands, because I knew he'd be safe there. He finally seemed to register that, and I felt him settle.

"Can Bob come in here? A box will be less suspicious than a skull anyway."

"If he'll open the lid I can," the skull, Bob, murmured. I did so, and pale orange light flowed from the skull to slide into the box. I shut the lid again, tucked the box safely in my coat, and we left.


	3. Chapter 3

Harry's POV

I'd never seen Bob like how he appeared inside my box, thin of face with dark hair and bright eyes and a leather jacket with a tiny, cartoonish skull on the breast of it. He dropped onto my couch and crossed his legs loosely, reclining as if he owned the thing.

"Really, Harry? You could've made this place into anything, and you picked this?" I shrugged.

"I missed it, I guess. This place has most things I miss, actually. A lot of memories." Bob nodded.

"There are some mistakes, though. There's no bloodstains on the carpet by the fireplace. You had that nosebleed over there once, remember?" Oh, yeah. Now that he mentioned it, I did remember, and the tiny stains miraculously appeared on the rug I had thrown over there. Not as perfect as I'd thought, then, this place. It's amazing, how such little things can remind you that something isn't real, that it all may as well be a dream for how substantial it is. "Marcone is a bad choice, by the way. Especially now." I cocked my head as if I had no idea what he was talking about.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I like to voice stuff like that, when I'm acting, since I'm really bad at acting. The Bob in front of me, the Bob with a body, laughed. It was a lot less unnerving when he had skin and a throat and a larynx and lungs stuff.

"Don't try to pull that shit with me. His aura is all tangled up with old bits of yours. It's not as noticeable as it would be if you were alive and cuddling up on him like you have been, but I can still see it." It took a few minutes, but his constant gaze finally broke me, and I admitted to it.

"It's all a lot clearer, now that I'm dead, how we felt about each other. I should've seen it before. I know it's wrong, Bob, and I know it's going to upset him more than anything else when I'm really Gone, but I couldn't just let him suffer. I had to tell the truth. Besides, I… I'm selfish. You know that. Of all people, you have to." Bob winced.

"Yeah. I do. You like the affection he's giving you, I know that, and I don't blame you for it, not after-" I stopped him with a hand.

"Shut up, please. I've already talked about all this recently. I don't want to do it again."

"Okay. Still, now seems like a good time. You'd be really vulnerable to He Who Walks Behind now, you know. And you know as well as I do that he's still out there. You heard him yourself, you said, in the Deeps." I flinched. I had. He Who Walks Behind had been a pretty constant boogeyman for me, right up there where Morgan used to be. The Walker had been a shadow for my entire life, I knew that, knew that he wanted revenge against the mere child that actually caused some damage to him. It always hurt me to think that DuMorne had sent the thing after me, had actually cared about me that little even though I'd heaped all the love I had on him. I hadn't even minded that he hit me, sometimes, because he never did it when I didn't deserve it, never hit me all that hard, like some of my other fathers had. The memory caught in my throat like a rock. I wished, sometimes, dreamed, imagined, that at some point he actually had loved me, but he'd just been corrupted, maybe by He Who Walks Behind. Maybe he'd been his teacher or something. That was a pointless thought, though, so I shook it off.

"I know. Anyway. Anyway. Do you have any idea about who killed me, Bob? Or about why I got sent back even though I'm just a bare soul?"

"No. I don't get as much information as I'd like, honestly. Murphy doesn't really… beyond Mister, everything you used to own, she's been having a hard time being around it. That's the real reason why she was so willing to give me to Butters. You were the one she thought would never die, you know? She respected you, and you were her best friend too. I don't want to think of how she would've reacted if your house actually was still around; she has a hard enough time going to the headquarters just because it is still on your old property. It's been hard for all of us, without you. You were important. Still, that's not what you asked. I've got some suspicions, but nothing concrete, and I can't really talk about it right now. Also, you would've had a choice about coming back. There not allowed to just force a shade back to earth. And I would like to know why you were dumb enough to risk being Gone gone and come back here like this."

"Shit," I said. All that stuff Jack had been saying… I had been given a choice. He'd offered to let me stay, to stay in the car, to go back, but I'd gotten out. I had made the choice. Fuck.

"You didn't. You did not get a choice like that and not realize that was the choice. Not even you are that dense."

"Um."

"You did. Goddamn. You actually are that dense. Maybe we should have a party." I punched his arm and touching something solid, touching Bob, was the strangest thing I'd ever done, by hundreds of places. It's the simple things, okay?

"Shut up. I got told that three people I loved would get hurt if I didn't do this. Even if I had recognized the choice at the time, I'd have made the same one. Besides, when I got back here, I didn't know I was any different from any other ghost. John just told me that about an hour or so, maybe." Bob rubbed his skull, and actually, heh, that's really funny, when I think about it. Bob. Rubbing his skull. Hah.

"You are such an idiot. Even when you're dead." And that was when I got pulled back out, because we'd run across Daniel and he'd scared the hell out of us and Murphy didn't trust me and it had taken so long to get her to trust the real me and I didn't have time to get her to do the same for my ghost. Butters' balls grew ten sizes very suddenly and he stood up to Daniel, spoke out for me, and then for John, who Daniel had been gazing at distastefully. I hovered there, for some reason not feeling like pretending I could actually stand on the ground just then, as Daniel finally agreed to help us, if only to save Father Forthill, our very own wayward priest who had the really weird idea that he could actually reason with a man like Aristedes. I'd known a lot of men like that man. Hell's Bells, I'd lived with one of them for six years. They couldn't be reasoned with because their hunger for power, for respect, had left them empty.

We snuck inside with a set of gray cloaks Butters had brought, and I didn't want to think about how natural they looked on Marcone. I informed our little group that we needed to feed his ego some, to get him to trust us, told them that I couldn't help much because of the whole situation with my magical dick, the one that meant that using it would slowly kill me. Daniel didn't appreciate the talk of magical dicks very much. I wasn't sure whether I should blame him for that or not. It was weird seeing how much he'd grown up, though, how he'd filled his father's shoes so seamlessly. I wasn't really able to say I liked it.

The plan worked well, to start with, and I actually almost thought we'd get away with it, until Aristedes asked about the swords. I wished I'd been alive because I could've explained it, could've said that none of the new Wardens got them because the woman who'd made them was out of commission, but Butters didn't know, Butters froze, Butters was lost. I was quickly losing hope for Father Forthill, for the man in the next room with an angel of death hovering over him watchfully, protectively. Forthill was an old man. A strong man, yes, but old, fragile boned and thin skinned. He couldn't… his injuries had been severe. I couldn't take the angel on either, even though I wanted to. She had reminded me of something annoying, though; free will could be a bitch. Father Forthill didn't deserve to die. Good choices, right choices, shouldn't have gotten him where he was. I'd deserved what I'd gotten. Father Forthill hadn't. He deserved to live, to watch the monsters fall and see the innocents rejoice. The angel didn't think so either, not really, at least I didn't think so, but the angels didn't get free will. Sometimes I had to wonder who the good guys really were.

John fired a bullet. Aristedes quickened his feet and dodged. Daniel got hurt, seriously so, when Aristedes went for a knife that Fitz only just barely managed to warn us about. Once Daniel was down, John went, because Aristedes was quick, and he was strong, and John was too, but he didn't have magic. He slammed against a wall with the force of a truck, and I couldn't help no matter how much I wanted to. I tried a fuego again, but the ghostly fire went right through Aristedes worthlessly. I could only stand there. I tried to manifest again but got the same results. I wished for the first time that I'd been a little more insane when I was alive. Butter managed to bring the guy down, but then got tricked. I thought for sure we were finished, but then I remembered Fitz. He could save us. He was also about to run away. I floated as quickly as I could over to him, and I'd have grabbed his arm if I could've.

"You've got to finish him," I said, "You have to." He was scared. He was too young. He looked at his friends and shivered. "Fitz, you can save all of us. All of them." He shook his head.

"No, no, I can't, he's too powerful. I told you he was too powerful, I told you."

"He's weak now. This is your only chance, Fitz. Stand up to him. If you stand up to him, he can't do anything to you. You can do this. Fitz, you need to. I promise you, if you don't do this, you'll regret it for your whole life." He looked uncertain. He looked frightened. He looked like how kids are supposed to look when the monster under their bed is bearing down on them with slavering jaws. And then he didn't. He looked like and adult. And he faced Aristedes down. He took his control. He freed his friends. He saved our asses. It's been a long time since I respected anyone as much as I respected that kid. I went to crouch beside John, whose head was split open and bleeding sluggishly. My hand looked so transparent around his hand that it made me shiver with disgust. The dead shouldn't consort with the living, not like this. It was… I'd only hurt the both of us, I knew that. I couldn't help it, though. I really did feel for John, especially so now that I was dead, now that I could admit it and embrace it because appearances, what I was supposed to feel and do, didn't matter anymore. Groggy, hazy, unfocused green eyes gazed at me. He'd hit the wall hard, I knew. Forthill appeared in even worse shape now that Aristedes was out of commission, lying on the ground as he watched his world fall apart around him, his servants, his slaves, ignore him. I felt no pity. At least that angel I'd seen was gone now, so maybe the Father was out of the woods now. Take that, Uriel.

* * *

I didn't get rest, after that. I made sure that Daniel and the Father got to the hospital, made sure Fitz and his gang would be alright, tried to get John to go to the hospital (I was helped in that endeavor some by the fact that he was talking to me in front of the paramedics, meaning he appeared to have an even more severe head injury than he did), but the bastard refused to go. Murphy showed up, along with the Alphas and Molly, since Daniel had said where he was going before he left, and they'd gotten worried after he never came back. We talked for a while, about my plan of going into the Corpsetaker's hideout through the Nevernever. That was the longest part, though, even longer than finding a place for Fitz and his friends to go, because Murphy and John kept pausing to argue about how many people to bring, as well as about why John hadn't told Murphy that he'd returned, and then Murphy turned her attention to Butters so they could argue about why he was going behind her back so much. I'd ended up being the one to break it up, which was weird.

"John, Murphy's right. And Murphy, it's my fault, not Butters'. We can't take a large army in that way; as a matter of fact, everyone that's still breathing is going in through the front door just as soon as I and a few other ghosts, who I can hopefully get to help me, get the wards down."

"Gard could do it," John said stiffly, his mouth set in a hard line and his hand appearing to be groping out for mine. Murphy's face was cold.

"Why in hell should we let you go gallivanting off on your own? Isn't that what got you into this whole mess in the first damned place, insisting on doing everything by yourself?" Molly was glaring at the both of them. I supposed she was still upset and felt another guilty knife twist in my heart.

"No," I whispered, "Asking you all for help was what caused this. Putting you all in danger. Winning that fight. I should've died in South America, not back here in Chicago. I should've… god, the Red Court should've taken me, not Maggie. It's not like they accomplished anything more by taking her than they would have with me. Arianna would've gotten her revenge, and the entire problem of my family would've been wiped out, except for Maggie, but she didn't know anything. Even if she did grow up with magic, she wouldn't have known anything about the war, my enemies, wouldn't have felt any desire to avenge the father she never knew about, because she would've thought the foster parents Susan put her with were her real parents. They should've done the curse on me. It would've been the same. Except Arianna wouldn't have gotten to see me suffer as much. I'd have probably accepted that I was going to die pretty quickly. I wasn't even the main target of it, but she still knew how to get the most out of it all. I hate her. She's dead, and I hate her. I… you all have done enough. More than enough. For me. For… yeah. I know you won't listen to me, know you'll help somehow whether I want you to or not. But I'm not putting you in more danger than I have to. The Nevernever isn't a safe place. I don't have anything left to lose anyway, so I'm going there without you guys." And all of them but John (of course) knew better than to argue with me.

"Harry, I will go wherever you go, in your life and in your death. I have not cared about my own fate in some time, and you need… shall we say, mortal force, on a mission such as that." I tried to argue back, really I did, but I'm pretty sure the only way he could've paid less attention to what I said is if he shoved his fingers in his ears and started yelling 'la la la' like a five year old. Or, you know. Me. I've done that before. But let's not talk about that. Ever. Anyway. The point is, arguing with him about that was totally pointless because apparently he was going to follow me wherever no matter what because he's a pain in my ass whether that ass is dead or alive. Maybe that was why I loved the dick.

* * *

I went with him back to Mort's place, and he seemed genuinely surprised by the ghosts that were milling around. Well, he'd be more surprised in just a second. I planted my feet squarely on the ground and held Sir Stuart's gun high in the air. I pictured the scene on it clearly, that beautiful family, that thick, almost cloying happiness, and wave after wave of calling fell from me. Ghosts, the mad dog killers Mort had been looking after, the Lecter Specters, filled the space around me slowly, slowly, slowly. The gun changed slowly into my staff, heavy and solid in my hand, a symbol of my own power carved with swirling runes. I took a deep breath. They stared at me, but there eyes weren't nearly as penetrating as John's.

"Hey, guys. Look. Mort's in trouble. I think you all know that. We need to go get him." Some of them flickered, but beyond that, I got no reaction. I sighed. "Okay. Uh. You guys know where he is, right? You can sense him?" Still no reaction. "Fine. Go to the building where he is, but don't go in, and don't hurt any of the mortals that you see outside. Actually, just don't bring any attention to yourselves at all. Wait for me." The only way I knew they heard me was that they, as well as the normal ghosts who'd guarded Mort's home, including the faded caricature of Sir Stuart, flickered out of existence and did as I asked them. John smiled a breathless smile at me, and I returned it as best I could. It's sort of strange, to not really feel it when you smile. I felt my desire for this stupid foray back into the living world to end. I was so tired. I hadn't ever known it was this bad.

"That's an interesting trick, Harry."

"One of my many talents," I said, brandishing the staff as we ran quickly towards Corpsetaker's hideout.

"You look far more like yourself, when you have that."

"Feel a lot more like myself too. I should be able to cast a little better now, at the least. Still won't be able to do shit to a mortal, though. In the Nevernever though, I'll be almost as good as new. For a while, until I run out. I've only got so much juice left in me, and I was already drained from the fight on the day I died."

"I'm here for you," he told me, and his voice was too serious. I wished I could hold his hand and kiss him and get a hug for my efforts. I'd always been a little hungry for touch, I knew that, but it'd only gotten worse recently, now that I had someone who I wanted to hold but couldn't. It's a lonely feeling. I don't want to get used to it. I'm scared I'll have to.

* * *

I got to the hideout and saw the Lecter Specters and the other ghosts waiting calmly, their bodies shimmering in the moonlight. Molly was brandishing her tuning fork, obviously waiting for me.

"Heya, Mols," I said, and she jumped a little. It looked like it hurt her leg.

"Harry," she said, and her voice was a little dry, a little scratchy."

"Can you open a Way for me, into the Nevernever?" She nodded.

"Of course. Do you… are you sure you don't want me to go in there with you?" I shook my head. I wasn't putting her at risk again. I'd done enough to her. I couldn't help but feel like I'd feel better if she hated me.

"No. Besides me, you're the only one here who can use magic. I want you to stay here and help protect everyone." She nodded, obviously knowing that I was just trying to protect her but appreciating the job either way. She mumbled a word in Japanese, and it was lilting and delicate and I knew I couldn't have used it for my casting in a million years. A neat hole appeared in the air, just barely big enough for me to fit through, and I entered. I found World War II on the other side.

We fought our way through a battle that had been won once already, and we were doing pretty well, until the artillery shells started getting fired. John tried to dive in front of me. I shoved him back and ordered all the ghosts behind me as I pulled up a shield. It smashed into it, and I felt the force pushing at me harshly. I couldn't hold up against many more of those. We forced our way onward because I knew that if we could just get close, we could win. Some giant black things in the sand tried to kill us. John once again tried to play the Knight in Shining Armor. I once again stopped him because damn it, we were in the Nevernever. He was powerful as hell in the real world, but here, he was just another mortal. The stuff here, the stuff we were fighting now, these mindless ghosts in Nazi uniforms, could kill him without a second thought and not bat an eyelash about it later. I didn't want him dead, ever, not before his time.

We finally made it to the top, and I let the Lecter Specters loose. I should've been more specific because they didn't always kill their victims; they wanted them to suffer. They left them to die from vicious wounds, or to not die, to simply lie there, crippled. The entrance to the real fortress was in sight. For the first time I felt like something would go off without a hitch. I sent the regular ghosts off to finish off the ones the Lecter Specters hadn't, and told Sir Stuart to tell them to actually finish their foes off. They left. John and I ran, side by side, my shield still up in front of us, to the exit. Evil Bob, his head a skull pouring blue flame, his body that of a Nazi commander, stopped us. I recalled his time spent with Kemmler, how he and the Warlock had actually started World War II. Maybe this scene brought back fond memories for him. I stepped in front of John because he'd protected me, saved me, enough. It was my turn.

Maybe I should've thought about exactly how much experience Evil Bob had before now. Maybe. It was like fighting every warlock I'd ever known and actually doing it fairly, one on one with no tricks. Worse than that, really. Oh, yeah, I held my own to begin with. And then I saw that I was nearly totally transparent. I had to stop. He knew that. I almost died again, right then, but John is smart. No, he didn't jump into the fight himself; he knew that Evil Bob was something he couldn't face down, at least when he was in Evil Bob's wheelhouse. Bob, on the other, hand, regular Bob, was another story. He let him out of the box, and for the millionth time, Bob saved my life. That did mark the first time he and John saved it together, though. I promised myself I'd buy them a cupcake to celebrate later. You know, with my ghost money. Shut up.

We ran to the gateway together, Evil Bob struggling vainly to stop us, all the ghosts appearing suddenly behind us, and then I saw Bob's game; he was going to seal the way behind us and then get the fuck out of dodge. I laughed raucously because Bob was a fucking genius, and we all dived through the gate. John seemed to be holding back adrenaline charged laughter himself. We'd did it, but now that we'd gotten ourselves out of the frying pan, it was time to face the fire.

* * *

I found out that I'd fucked up pretty quickly from how Mort looked at me when he saw the Lecter Specters. He called me an idiot. At that time, I attributed it to him being a little loopy because of the Wraiths that had been hurting him. I sent the Lecter Specters around to start breaking down the wards. Corpsetaker appeared and was, understandably, pretty pissed at me.

We started to fight, and she hadn't lost any of her skill from before, from when she was alive. She was older than me. She'd fought more than me. She didn't have a silly thing like sanity to hold her back. Added to that, I was weak, almost dead. John seemed to know that because he seemed to want to hold me back as I entered the fight. Maybe that was the one plus to being dead; he couldn't stop me from fighting my battles, at least not physically.

I knew I couldn't beat the Corpsetaker in a one on one head to head match, not then, but all I needed was to stall for time, to let the Lecter Specters do their thing, break all the little idols that were keeping the wards up, and get my little army in here. I called for John to try and help Mort get down, and he did so, but I felt his eyes following me as I jumped around the room. Corpsetaker couldn't hit me if she didn't know where I'd be, so I just kept moving, first here, then there. She tried to follow, and we fired force and fire and worse at each other desperately. When we managed to guess where the other would go, we landed hits. My body ached and I was bleeding ectoplasm profusely. I didn't think Corpsetaker was in much better shape, but she had a lot more magic left in her than I did. I could see the floor through my hand when I glanced down. I felt weak. John got Mort down. The Lecter Specters had one idol left to break. The Corpsetaker summoned a human who hadn't been human for a long time from the Wraith pit, called him Boz. The psychic trauma on him stank, and I was sure the real him didn't smell much better, from the filth that was crusted on him inches thick. She set him on John and Mort. And then she broke the last idol herself. Fuck. Why can't things be easy for once?

I heard the crack of bullets as I set the Lecter Specters on Corpsetaker and ran up the stairs to let Murphy and the rest in. Human henchmen drifted around lazily. I floated through the door, the thought of how I would get back inside eluding me until I'd already done it.

"They're down. And yes, I know I can't get back in now, so shut the fuck up," I mumbled. Murphy couldn't quite hide her smile.

"Good job, Harry," she said, and then Molly was let loose on the door. Not magic wise, of course. Apparently she just knew how to pick locks. I was admittedly impressed, and told her so. She nodded, her face flushed with a little pleasure, and Murphy opened the door, her little automatic raised up defensively. No one got shot, though; no, Murphy knew how to talk. The man who answered the door, who was actually little more than a teenager, listened to her. He and his friends. They were kids, and they were hungry, and they were scared, and Corpsetaker was disgusting. Murphy got them to invite us in, clever woman that she is, and Molly put them to sleep so we wouldn't have to hurt them. I was grateful for that as I ran back down the stairs because enough people had been hurt because of me. Enough people had died.

Boz was still coming at Mort and John no matter how many bullets John put in him. His mouth was open, and I saw that he was missing most of his teeth. His eyes were dead stones in the darkness of his hood. I saw Corpsetaker eat one of the Lecter Specters. There weren't any others left. The power was whipping around her in waves. I'd fucked up. I'd fucked up bad. Mort was going to die. All my friends were, too. Molly, god, Molly. And John. John hadn't been involved. I'd involved him. He stumbled. Boz crashed into him and picked him up by his middle, raised him into the air as if he were a feather, and through him. John caught my eyes as he was sailing through the air, and time suddenly slowed. I had to do something. The floor was coming up fast and I couldn't be sure a hit like that wouldn't kill him. I knew my only option, knew it like breathing, knew it with all I had. I had to manifest. I remembered everything about living, the touch, the sights, the smells, the beauty, the joy, a hand in mine, arms around me, and then I remembered the bad things too, the pain and the death and the sorrow that just reminded me of how great it was to be happy, how great it was that I could feel at all. I let it all fill me up, amazing because it was there. Memories of aches in my knees, of a cold stethoscope over my heart, of the feeling of a twelve-sided die in my hand, of cold breezes and warm sunshine, assaulted me with clarity. I was insane. I may as well prove it. I whispered one word, in English, the word with the most meaning, the most importance, of them all.

"Be." And I was. I had a solid body again, at least temporarily, and all the pain that came with it, little aches you get throughout your life that you just don't notice until they're gone for a while and then come back. I lunged forward and tumbled to the ground and just barely managed to catch John as he fell towards the ground. He was heavy. I told him so. He laughed like a madman as he stood, and I shared the sentiment, if not the action. Mort gazed at me with an open mouth.

"Always knew you were insane," he murmured, and I grinned.

"Certifiably." The whip-crack of another bullet pierced the air and I saw it hit Boz. I saw the poor bastard fall, and I was suddenly assaulted with his smell. I almost wished I could have the psychic remnants of it back. John shot him again, clean, through the head, then again in the chest, and again in the stomach, and seemed ready to do it again when I pulled him back. He shivered and dropped his gun before his arms wrapped tightly around me. He was shaking.

"God. God. You're… you're solid. What did you do? Are you-" I knew what he was going to ask and cut him off with a shake of my head. His devastation was almost palpable. I wasn't used to getting that much emotion out of him, and it still worried me some. I gently extricated myself from him.

"It's temporary; ghosts can make a body like this for themselves, if they're psychotic enough. And these were desperate times, so hello psycho Harry." I looked around the room for Corpsetaker, and she wasn't there. Shit, shit, shit.

"She ate the ghosts. Why did you bring them here? I wasn't keeping them to protect people from them; I was protecting them from her. She's going to have a power boost from hell now, damn it," Mort cursed, and reached up to run a hand over his bald head. I felt like doing the same, but I couldn't because Corpsetaker was dangerous and I wouldn't let her hurt my friends, not ever, not again. I ran upstairs. John, his hand gripped in mine, followed. I figured Mort was behind us, but he wasn't. I needed to buy him a beer, for staying behind, for doing what he would do.

Upstairs, I found all of my friends, except for Butters and Molly, sleeping. Where was Corpsetaker? Stars and Hell's fucking Bells Stones, I was stupid. John's grip tightened exponentially when Butters seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"You're back?" he asked, face twisted in confusion.

"Yeah, limited time only," I said, turning away from him. "What happened?"

"Nothing, just, Molly saw it was dangerous, so she knocked them out and went on. I don't know exactly where she went, though." I nodded and calmed some, but then I was shoved to the ground, John on top of me, his face twisted in rage. Butters was standing a few feet away, where I'd been, with a knife in his hand. Butters had tried to… kill me? What? He cursed, but it wasn't his voice. Corpsetaker. No. No, no, no, no.

"It seems there is one man who does not trust a doctor," she said, Butters' face shaped into a cold, heartless image of what it usually was. John helped me up to his feet and raised his gun, but I pulled his arm down.

"You'll hurt Butters' body," I told him, "and it won't kill her anyway. Let me-" And then Molly appeared out of nowhere, having hidden herself under an expert veil.

"No, Harry, let me. I insist," she growled, and hey, who knew, my apprentice was a badass. She took Butters' shoulders and gazed into his eyes, and then I saw it, saw the Corpsetaker leaving her vessel in order to enter Molly.

"Oh, sweet girl," she muttered, "You cannot fight my mind. What a treat you've offered, doing this; if I could not have the ectomancer, you are certainly the next best option." I tried to go over there, to help, but John held me back. I tried magic anyway, though, poured myself, my Soulfire, into it. I missed. I couldn't believe it, but I did. I hit the wall. And then I hit the floor, the body I'd made fading away just like my soul.

I was so close to gone and I couldn't think clearly, couldn't remember… where was I? Who… who was I? Why was I dead? Who was that man over me, the one who looked so worried? Why did I care so much about that other shade in the corner, the one who looked so lost, or the girl gazing at the shade's body with powerful determination? I wasn't sure. A man I knew but didn't know ran in, monstrous things I couldn't name but should've been able to wrapped around him. The girl grinned, and the man set the monsters on a wispy creature that I knew was bad, but I didn't know why I knew that. The man above me was yelling for someone named Harry. I thought that Harry guy had to be pretty lucky, to have someone who cared that much about him. I wondered if I'd had anyone like that. The man who'd had the monsters helped the lost looking shade go back into his body. I smiled a little. That was good. I looked down at where my hand should've been and couldn't see it. I knew that was supposed to be really bad, but couldn't remember why. The cries for Harry were getting more desperate. I wished he'd hurry up and come, so the nice man above me would stop worrying. He didn't look good, worried. I hoped for a second that he'd be happy, soon, that Harry would come and get him to stop looking so sad.

There was something important niggling at the corner of my brain, something I knew I'd been supposed to find out. Something about… about… why I had died. Who was I again? I still couldn't remember. But I'd died, I knew that. I was… someone had killed me. I was supposed to find out who it was. I already knew that though, didn't I? Of course I did. I looked hard for that memory, as hard as I could, everywhere I knew to look. The door to the dark room I was in crashed open and a pretty, tall blonde entered with a big red headed man. They looked familiar too. I lost the threads of the thought I'd been seeking, and worked desperately to find it again. The girl from before was sitting over me now too. She was crying and yelling for Harry as well. Where was that idiot? He had to hear, by now. I smiled at them to let them know that Harry would certainly be there soon. I looked at my arm, and it wasn't there anymore either. The red head was carrying a body wrapped up in vines. It looked familiar. It looked… it looked like me. I finally found the thought again, the one about my death.

It was a fact I wasn't supposed to remember. Someone had made me forget because I'd asked them to. That girl over me. Her name was Molly, I recalled suddenly. Molly Carpenter. But damn it, what was my name? I'd… I'd died from a bullet. A gunshot to my chest. Then I'd fallen in the lake. Why? Why would I have wanted to forget about that? Better still, why did I know it would happen before it happened? Because I'd ordered it, my mind supplied. I'd called a man named… Kincaid. Jared Kincaid. I'd asked for a favor, asked him to kill me. He'd done it, too. But why did I want to die? I saw a shadowy figure beside my bed, whispering words of guilt to me. I had done something wrong. I deserved to die. I had made a mistake, called for a favor from… from Queen Mab. My back had been broken, and she'd fixed it. I'd become her Knight after she mounted me on a stone table. I hadn't wanted to. I'd… I'd been guilty, and I'd been scared, and I'd called a hit on myself, and I'd made Molly help me forget, and Thomas hadn't known, Thomas should've known, and there had been a fallen angel by my bed pouring poison in my ear all the while. Now I was dead. I was dead and I was fading. And the man above me was named John Marcone. I loved him. The two with my body were his employees, Gard and Hendricks. My name… I… was… my name… is Harry Dresden. I am Harry Dresden. I am fading. They're yelling for me. They're scared. My body is there. What do I do? I don't know how to go back. I lost myself again shortly after that, and I was gone for a while.

* * *

I woke up on a soft bed, and the first thing I realized was that I was alive. I was alive, and I was breathing, and that meant I was alive, and Hell's Bells, I had a pulse! The second thing I noticed was that John was holding my hand in a vice even as he slept in the chair beside me. There was a book on the bedside table with a silken red bookmark in it, along with a pair of wire framed reading glasses. I smiled and tightened my fingers around his. He woke with a jolt, his free hand immediately reaching towards the inside of his jacket. He relaxed immediately when he saw me, and his hand lifted mine to clutch it to his chest, as if I'd get up and run away.

"Hey, John," I said, my voice dry and cracked and god, but it hurt to talk, and I don't think I was ever so happy that something hurt.

"Harry. Harry. Gard said… she didn't know if it would work. I could hardly even see you when she and that little man put you back in your body. They were talking privately, and I heard them say it was one in a million that you'd wake up because so little was left. You were almost… the big Gone." I shifted my hand in his grip so my thumb could stroke the underside of his wrist.

"I figured. I was pretty out of it, there at the end. Is everyone okay?" He nodded and bent down, his head dropping onto my chest. I hissed as he hit something that felt like bruise, a bruise just on top of my heart, right where the bullet hit. Stars and Stones. I was alive. I couldn't stop saying it, even in my head.

"Yes, Harry. All of your friends, and Bob as well. Your… Miss Murphy told me to tell you that Michael and his family had your daughter, that you could visit her if you wanted. I, though… I thought perhaps that you and I could care for her. If you desired to do so. I've always… always wanted a daughter." I smiled.

"We'll think about it. If Maggie wants to too. I'll need to tell her the truth first, though, get her used to the idea. She's just a little girl. She's probably only just now getting comfortable there. It wouldn't be good for her to get moved around too much too quickly. Mouse is with her still, right?" John nodded.

"Certainly. And the spirit you called Bob is fine as well. He exited the Nevernever shortly after you were returned to your body. He's back in his skull, now. I've kept the box." I wondered why he was choosing to tell me that, but didn't really question it, much. He was obviously in a weird mood, just then. His short, salt and pepper hair tickled my throat a little as he slid his head up some.

"Thank you. For everything, John. I really do love you."

"And I you, Harry." We sat there in silence for a little while, and it felt a little like each of us was just basking in the presence of the other. It was calm and it was quiet and I was alive and everyone was okay.

"We should go see Thomas, soon. And also, I should probably tell you something about him and me." He tensed for a second.

"What?"

"Don't start sounding like that, John. It's nothing bad. He's my half-brother. That's… that's the real reason we were living together for a while. He needed my help. And… Hell's Bells, John, I know who killed me." He shot up, his eyes flashing to new money again.

"Who? Tell me." I had a feeling that if it was anyone other than who I said, I'd have to fear for their life. Maybe I would anyway. He'd be pissed.

"Me. I called the hit on myself, and then made Molly mess around with my memories to make me forget. Kincaid was the one who pulled the trigger, but he only did it to repay a favor to me, because I asked him to do it." He was shaking.

"Why? Why would you do such a thing? You bastard. You…" I reached up to pull him back down because I liked his weight and his warmth.

"I'm sorry. It was because I didn't want to be the Winter Knight. I didn't want to change. That felt like the only way out, at the time, and I was guilty about what I'd done already, about what I knew I would do. There was something by the bed, too, something black and evil. It was whispering things to me. Bad things. I think… I think that thing was what made me finally decide to do it. Molly wanted me to tell Thomas what I was doing, but I knew he'd try to stop me, so I didn't. I haven't thought about him because of that. I need to apologize, and… oh, shit, how did Gard get my body from Mab?" John's fingers clenched in my shirt, a loose thing that I knew couldn't have been mine, because it smelled clean and it had buttons.

"I was wondering when you'd ask," he whispered, and I felt scared. What if he'd given himself up for me? I wouldn't be able to take that. "Gard had an artifact. Very rare, very special. She got it from her true employer. A thing I'd been looking for, and she had it all along. The Holy Grail. She told me that she didn't give it to me because she knew we'd need it later, knew that if we wasted it then, we'd be lost in the future. She traded it to Mab for you. It was the only thing she felt was of equal worth." I blinked. I was Holy Grail valuable? What the fuck? When did that happen? Whatever. I'd probably still have to deal with her trying to take me, or Thomas, or Molly, or, later on and if she got magic, Maggie. I was ready for it, though. I was ready for a lot, now.

"Thank you again, John. And… for what I did, for hurting you all so much, I… Hell's Bells, I'm sorry." He smiled, sweet, gentle, forgiving, amazing, happy, himself again for the first time in god knew how long. He reached up to touch my cheek and moved his head to hover over mine, before he brought his lips down to touch mine. It was perfect, a kiss I'd never forget because I was alive and I had John and I wasn't the Winter Knight and I was happy and I had so much ahead and maybe things weren't so bad after all. Maybe I was finally getting to cash in on all those good deeds I'd done. I could only hope.

The kissing thing was just starting to get good when there was a bright flash of light in the room. I ignored it, though, because obviously it was just a random power surge and who cared even if it wasn't when John was such a good kisser and this was the first one we'd shared when I had a pulse, which was now rocketing up to somewhere above the stratosphere.

"Ahem." Uriel. Oh shit. I gave John a slight push to get him to get off, since he didn't seem too inclined to do it himself. He glared at Uriel as if he wasn't and Archangel and also as if he would very much enjoy telling him just where he could shove his ability to magically appear in a room.

"Uh. I would say that this wasn't what it looked like, but it totally is, and you're an angel anyway, so you already know, so yeah. What's up?" I almost expected a bad pun about certain parts of mine or John's anatomy, but he was an angel, as previously stated. He wouldn't be that crass.

"Things that dwell in trousers that I'd not like to mention, I think, Harry." Or maybe he was. Goes to show how much I know about angels. "Now. It seems you've figured out the discrepancy I mentioned, correct? The Fallen by your bed." I nodded.

"Yeah."

"Good. And now you have made another discrepancy that I must deal with. You returned from the dead."

"So I did. Is there paper work for this kind of thing?" He glared.

"Very much of it." I snickered.

"Ah, Archangels. The best paper-pushers this side of heaven."

"Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, I would suggest you not test me right now." I shivered at the use of my Name, and John seemed to notice. He also seemed upset about it. It was then I realized that John had the ego of an Archangel already, and it probably wouldn't do to make him not happy with one of the real ones.

"And I would suggest you not make him react like that, otherwise I may get a bit upset." Uriel actually looked taken aback for a second, before he laughed.

"I merely called him by his Name, Mr. Marcone. He only shook because of that; wizards find it rather uncomfortable, when they meet a being who can say their true name, as it means that they are very vulnerable to that person. Names are powerful business, most especially those of the denizens of the supernatural community." John bared his teeth anyway, and I then realized that he had an alpha male complex from hell. And also that he was probably posturing right then.

"I'd rather you didn't no matter the cause or the reason." Uriel sighed and waved a hand.

"Yes, yes. Mr. Dresden, I merely wanted to inform you that you will likely be watched closely from now on. There are not many that get a second chance like this. Use this time you've been given wisely. I look forward to seeing you again, by the way, when your true time comes. Perhaps then you'd consider working for me." And then he was gone. It was only at that point that I noticed that, hey, there were actually a lot of parallels between John and Uriel. I didn't really want to think on that. Also, John doesn't like Uriel. Nor does he like it when Uriel talks to me. Apparently he feels threatened by an angel (I have no idea why), which he proved to me for the rest of that day and at least half of the next one by putting various bite marks on various parts of my body. I've yet to break him of that habit, by the way.

We did end up taking Maggie to live with us, after she learned who I really was to her. She's a pretty happy kid now, even though she still has nightmares and insists on sleeping in the bed with John and I. It's usually fine, until Mouse decides to join her, at which point someone, by which I mean me or John, is ending up in the floor. She called John papa now, and I'm daddy. It's sort of weird. But I like it anyway.

I still save the world, or at least Chicago, somewhere between once a week and once a year, but hey, it's a living. Thomas forgave me after I got the silent treatment for about two weeks, and he and Justine have finally worked out a way where they can be together that involves a lot of anonymous third parties that I don't want to think about please and thank you.

Butters and I have joint custody of Bob now, which is pretty hilarious. Molly is doing better now that I've gotten her away from the Leansidhe and back with me. She still gets sad, sometimes, still seems like she wants to kill John more often than not, but there's been progress, and I can't ask for more. My shadow is over Chicago again, so she's been able to stop her vigilantism. Murphy's grateful. Murphy has also finally taken up the sword full time, much to the pleasure of Sanya. They're still looking for the third Knight, and so am I, but we're in no hurry. Murphy kicks enough ass for three knights on her own, honestly. Mister is living with me full time again too, which he seems happy about. At least he doesn't crowd us out of the bed, though. Stupid Mouse.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that dying changes a lot, and when you come back afterwards, it changes even more. I'm different from how I was. My life is different, too. I don't like all the changes, and I still feel sick and tired and bothered and scared a lot, but some of the other changes have made me the happiest man alive, so it balances out. John… I really do love the asshole. I love his kisses and I love his touch and I even love his bastard personality. We're happy, we're a family, and that's all I've ever wanted.


End file.
